Before sunrise on Monday 20th June 1994 New Zealand’s most controversial and divisive murders occurred at Dunedin’s 65 Every Street. Police responding to a 111 call at 7:09 arriving at 7:30 to discover what appeared to be a murder suicide at the eccentric residence of the Bain family. Five bodies and an apparent suicide message typed on a computer screen exonerating the sole survivor, David Bain was not the open and shut case it initially appeared to be. The bizarre behaviour of the survivor and the lack of evidence connecting the supposed murderer, Robin Bain, to the deaths lead the Police into arresting the eldest son and preventing him from attending the funeral of his slaughtered family which he had been meticulously choreographing following their grisly deaths. David’s lack of grief or hostility towards his supposed murdering father and his healthy appetite quickly vanished as he was escorted to a prison cell four days later which was to become his home for the next 13.5 years.

Floor plan of 65 Every Street, showing bodies, bloody sock prints and resting place of the victims (Click on images to enlarge)

Following a lengthy trial David Bain was found guilty of murdering his three siblings, Stephen, 14, Laniet, 18, Arawa, 19, and his parents Margaret and Robin aged 50 and 58. The jury did not buy the defence’s incredible story of Robin murdering his family while David was on a pre-dawn paper run then exiting the world with a bullet to his brain. However not everyone was convinced of David’s guilt despite the mountain of evidence indicting him. David’s supporters relentlessly pursued every legal avenue until his conviction was overturned in 2009. He is now fighting for compensation. David Bain is either the victim of New Zealand’s most spectacular miscarriage of justice or he is the killer who murdered his entire family and successfully pinned the blame on his father.

The ever creative Joe Karam stretching the bounds of reality describing how Robin might have topped himself (click on image to enlarge)

David Bain’s chief supporter, ex-All Black footballer, Joe Karam has made a lucrative career for himself defending David Bain. Michael Sharp puts Karam’s income from promoting David’s innocence at $424,800 in tax-payer funded legal aid in addition to copious amounts from four best selling publications on the subject together with compensation from successfully suing several defenders of Robin Bain, for defamation. In response to the one sided presentation of information spruiking David’s innocence, extending to the Wikipedia entry on David Bain, Michael Sharp has this month released a 200 page book titled ‘The Bain Killings’ striving to correct and contradict both Joe Karam’s versions of events and the absurd and factually incorrect conclusions of Justice Ian Binnie’s 2009 findings. This book is purely for those who have been following the case which is stretching into its third decade. The publication provides little in the way of a background story and is devoid of emotion or plot. Chapter after chapter deal specifically with the case’s evidence. For those familiar with this evidence, the overwhelming weight of its conclusions points to only one person being guilty of New Zealand’s most horrific murder; the legally ‘innocent’ David Bain.

Robin Bain’s awkward resting place showed signs of being moved after death (click on image to enlarge)